A Short History of Contract Law
by ohmygodnotthecar
Summary: Six months later, Dean's still here. He doesn't know why, or how, or where Sam is.
1. Chapter 1

**This story is AU – written before the events of season three. It doesn't conflict with anything yet, I think. It's another 'How Dean didn't go to hell' story (I'm sorry, but the plot bunny bites where the plot bunny bites). That doesn't mean that he gets away without a little angst.**

**This is my first multichapter effort. Advice nice.**

**Disclaimer: As always, I own no stick nor stone of the characters or their wacky televised adventures.  
**

**Chapter one – In which a dual time frame is established.**

"Hello?"

"Hey. Who is this?"

"My name is Dr Cairns. To whom am I speaking? " It was an old man's voice, polite and authoritative. The use of the word 'whom' instantly annoyed Dean.

"You called me, dude."

"I'm sorry, this is a little odd. There was no name with the number, you see."

"How did you get my cell number?"

"One of my patients wrote it on a playing card. It's the only form of communication he's attempted in the week he's been here. Could I describe him to you, or can you get here to identify him? I'm speaking fro - "

There was the sound of violent activity on the other end of the phone. Dean Winchester narrowed his eyes against the glaring sun of Arizona as he stepped into the parking lot.

"Doctor Cairns? "

" He just broke into my office. The patient, our John Doe. He's given me the deuce of spades. It's another message, I think."

"What does it say?"

"'Tell him he's a jerk.' Does that mean anything to you?" There was a long pause. "Hello?"

"Where are you?"

"University Hospital, Berkley, California. Who-"

"My name's Dean Connor. I'll be there as soon as I can, I'm in Arizona, I don't know how long…. I'm on my way."

"Mr Connor?" Dr Cairns looked at the phone in perplexity as the dial tone filled the room.

"Well, that was strange."

Six months earlier

"Sammy, get some clean clothes on. It's party night!" Dean moved hectically round the motel room, bouncing off the walls with undirected energy.

"I found a new lead." Sam didn't move.

"Oh for crying out loud. It's my last week on Earth! I wanna have some fun, a few beers, a little time with my brother, after which you can get back on to your dead-end lead." Inwardly Dean winced. That had come out a little harsher than intended.

Sam looked up from the laptop screen, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep.

"Christ." He pressed his palms onto his eyes, ran his hands down his face to cover his mouth.

"Yes. Okay. Let's go"

"Nuh-uh. First, you make yourself less skanky. You stink. Here –" he threw a bundle of clothes at Sam, who almost failed to catch them.

"Clean things. You remember clean? I'm going to get you some caffeine while you wash and change. Slob."

Sam headed for the bathroom, yawning. Okay, maybe, he'd let the washing thing go the way of sleep and meals. There was so little time left and he had to find some thing, some way out of Dean's deal before -. As always his mind blanked when considering what would happen if the deal went through. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

He was going to find a way, whatever it took. Just in case, though, it would be good to spend some time with Dean. Really talk, for a little while.

SNSNSNSN

The club music was so loud Sam could feel his teeth vibrate. Dean leaned over with a shark like grin.

"She's checking you out!"

"What?"

"I said – ah, screw it."

"What?"

Dean slipped off his chair and danced into the crowd. Sam stared into space. _Talk. Yeah_. Before he stalked out the door he placed his half full beer neatly on the bar. Research was best done sober.

**AN: Updating will be soon, cross my heart and hope to die**. **It will all make sense.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two – In which a meeting occurs**

Four and a half days after Dr Cairns had called 'John Doe's Hotline of Mystery' a bedraggled looking guy with a three-day beard showed up at Reception.

"Hi. I'm here to see a Dr Cairns?" He smiled engagingly, causing the receptionist to rethink calling hospital security in favour of trying to get his number.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"Yup, sure do. Where is he?"

"His office is up the stairs, first on the left. What was your name?"

"Call me Dean. Thanks." He took the stairs two at a time.

SNSNSNSN

"Dr Cairns? Dean Connor. We spoke on the phone."

"Ah yes." Dr Cairns was in his late fifties, slipping gracefully into baldness. He eyed Dean's dishevelled appearance with well-concealed misgiving.

"I drove all night." Dean grinned sheepishly, scratching his head.

"Who do you think we have here, exactly?"

"I'm sorry, but could I see him first?"

"Listen, young man, you'll forgive my speaking plainly. You've clearly got your hopes up about my patient. Perhaps I should make it clear that his condition is very serious. I think you should prepare yourself. Even if it _is_ whoever you think it is, he's unlikely to get up and say hello."

"Look, Doc, if that's my brother… I thought he was dead. Any advance on dead is good enough for me. Can I see him now?"

The doctor sighed.

"I'll take you to the ward."

As they walked he described the inhabitants and purpose of the ward. Local police or social services sometimes picked up individuals in an obvious state of psychiatric disturbance or extreme distress with no clear physical injury. Ward 17b was where they were stabilised and assessed before being moved on - to a care home, another department or more rarely back to a caregiver.

The moment they opened the door Dean ran up to Sam's chair and hugged him.

"Thank God, thank God. Jesus, Sam, I thought you were – where the hell have you been?"

Sam stared at the ground. The muscles in his jaw twitched. Small random tics of spasmic movement crawled over his body like ants. The hospital pyjamas hung on him as if on a scarecrow.

"Sam?" The piteous appeal in Dean's voice seemed to get through. Slowly Sam raised his head to meet Dean's eyes.

"D-d-d." A tear ran down his face.

"Hey, it's okay." Dean brushed away the tear with his thumb, squatting in front of Sam's chair.

"I'm here."

"N-no. You're alive." Sam's voice was ragged, harsh with lack of use.

"I'm dead. You're alive. The real Dean is alive. You're a trick. God I wish you were real."

"You're not dead, Sam. Planet Earth, right here right now." Dean smacked the floor for emphasis.

"I don't care." Sam's gaze dropped to his hands as his fingers wove in and out, twisting each other in clasped hands till the knuckles turned white. Dean reached to try and loosen them. Sam resisted, pulling away and clasping his hands tighter until he pushed Dean aside and sprang out of the chair.

"You're not fooling me." Sam's voice rang with the ghost of confidence, edged with desperation. He stood hunched, arms folded round his ribcage, swaying a little and breathing hard from the exertion.

"This is Hell. I'm not insane yet, you sons of bitches."

He shuffled to his bed in the corner of the ward, climbing in with aching slowness. Dean helped him with the covers. Sam curled up into a foetal ball, his back toDean, hands over his ears.

"So, Doc, this fairly standard?" Dean kept his tone light, with some effort.

"He's never spoken before."

"When did he-"

"Come back into my office." Dr Cairns laid a hand on Dean's shoulder in compassion.

"I'll tell you everything I know, but you have to promise me you'll get some sleep."

"Deal."

Six months earlier

"Step away from the laptop, Sam. There's no internet connection here."

"Well, we gotta change motel then. I know you can't know anything about what I'm doing but please, trust me on this." Sam was doing a good impression of a hungry Labrador puppy begging for beef jerky.

"Give it up. I've got three days left. You're not going to find anything new."

"I can't just-" Dean cut him off.

"There is nothing you can do. Even _if_ you found something I'd rather knock you outor the next three days than chance you trying anything."

"The hell you would. You're terrified. You want out, I can see it." Oh Sammy. Always going for the sucker punch.

"Doesn't matter. I couldn't risk you dying and me getting dragged to Hell anyways. In the end it's just a numbers game." Life, death and everything in between boiled down to this unanswerable, numerical logic. One is greater than zero.

Sam sighed. His anger, and with it his energy, seemed to have left him completely.

"Guess I've been wasting my time here."

"I appreciate it, don't get me wrong."

"Yeah. I'm going to miss you."

"I know. You did what you could."

Sam sniffed, dragged a sleeve over his eyes and straightened his shoulders with a jerk.

"So, what do you want to do?"

"Let's go see some mountains." Dean spoke on impulse, happy to have hashed the damn thing out. For the last time, with any luck.

"Sure. I'll pack."

As Dean turned away Sam ran over the plan in his head. It could work. It was a little risky, he would have liked more time to prepare, but all the risk was on his side. Sam could live with that. Dean was now completely unsuspecting and given the terms of his contract, it was best for him to stay that way. No more research, then.

It was worth trying. Two is greater than one.


	3. Chapter 3

**Okay. This is where AU makes a big appearance. There is no Ruby, so the colt was never fixed. Sam never shot the crossroads demon. **

**Also, I made up the hospital. Any resemblance to hospitals living or dead is yadda yadda yadda.**

**Chapter three – In which Sam isn't crazy**.

"Hey, Sam. You awake?" Sam was lying in bed, propped up on pillows. There were deep shadows under his eyes.

"Dean. Hey." Sam's voice was still weak, but getting stronger.

"What's up?"

"Not a lot. You know I'm real now?" Dean couldn't stop himself grinning. It was nice to be recognised.

"Yeah, kind of. My mind isn't too clear but I guess this is a good day. I'm pretty sure you're my brother."

"Wish I could say the same. You look like something crapped you out." Sam's laugh deteriorated into a cough with shortness of breath.

"And now I'm really sure. Ow. Laughing hurts."

"Seriously, you don't look too good. Need a little more meat on your bones."

"Yeah." Sam regarded his own arm with mild amusement, as if he'd never seen it before. His wrist bones protruded as if threatening to break through the skin. He twitched, his fingers splaying, and dropped his arm.

"It was worse before I got here. Only had two weeks of food and I'm walking already." Sam sounded so proud of being able to walk, Sam who used to run for miles. Dean cleared his throat before replying.

"You couldn't walk before?"

"Not very well. So how have you been?"

"I woke up at a crossroads in the middle of Colorado, not a scratch on me, about six months ago. Car was there, you weren't." It had been agony, not knowing what Sam had done and fearing the worst. Those first weeks were…

"I was kind of upset. A little worried, y'know?"

Half mad, driving round aimlessly looking for a tall guy with brown hair. Not even thinking to phone Bobby for a fortnight. Sam looked at him with compassion.

"I know. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you. Didn't you get my message?"

"Message?"

"I sent you an email. 'If you're reading this I'm probably dead…' It was on a time delay."

"I didn't check my email. Never do." Dean started laughing.

"Only you, Sam. Only you would send an email. Jesus. I ditched the laptop, by the way."

Sam was appalled that Dean had suffered for nothing. In retrospect, though, it was a little funny.

"You're an idiot, man. Why do you even have an email address?"

Dean ignored this, moving on to more important questions.

"Where were you?"

"California, as of a week or two ago. Got myself to the nearest house and blacked out, then woke up here. They moved me to this ward after I woke up."

"Yeah, smartass, before that."

"Hell." Sam twitched a little. He seemed to be fascinated by the weave of the hospital blanket across his chest, and wouldn't meet Dean's eyes.

"You want to talk about it?"

"No." The word was a brick wall.

"So what should I do if you start thinking you're back there again?"

"Go away and come back later."

"That's a lot to ask." Dean said reproachfully.

"I honestly don't know. I mean, I think I'm getting better. I was like that pretty much till I wrote down your number. That was a lucid period, the first one I can remember. They've gotten longer and more frequent since then." Sam looked down at his hand, flexing the fingers open and closed in an overtly controlled gesture.

"You caught me at a bad time before, that's all. I'm okay." Dean might have argued with that assessment, but Sam looked half-way to unconcious.

"Tired?"

"Yeah. I'm a wuss." Sam mocked his own lack of strength, trying to hide the irritation it caused him.

"That's a load of crap and you know it. One last question."

"Shoot."

"What did you do? To switch places, or whatever you did. And how did you get out?"

"Oh boy. That's two really long stories. Raincheck?" Sam yawned, swallowing the last word.

"Sure. Just be here tomorrow, okay?"

"'M not goin' anywhere. Jerk."

"Bitch." Dean ruffled Sam's hair, ignoring a 'mneh!' of protest, and left.

Six months earlier

"How do I look?" Dean straightened his tie in the mirror.

"Like you in a suit. This is sick." Sam kicked the doorframe with unnecessary violence.

"I'm going out with style. Call it a final curtain outfit. Plus, the lady might appreciate a little effort."

"Christ." Sam looked like he'd been punched in the stomach. The black humour had been unrelenting for the past few days and maybe it helped Dean cope, but it hurt. He turned his mind to the plan, which was steadily looking more and more stupid. Checked his watch. Time to make a move.

"I love you, Dean."

"Love you too." Only on the edge of death could this possibly be said.

"I'm sorry about this." Sam picked up a cloth.

"What? Hey –" The chloroform worked pretty quickly, but Dean still had time to look betrayed.

Sam got out a scalpel and carefully nicked the pads of his own and Dean's middle fingers. Colleting the blood with a paintbrush, he started to copy a symbol onto Dean's forehead.

Driving to the nearest crossroads, Dean sprawled snoring across the back seat, Sam felt the adrenaline flow like wine through his veins. He pulled over, nauseous with fear, opened the door and got rid of his dinner of lukewarm burger and cold, greasy fries. Retched over the tall grass till there was nothing left. Despite the sour taste in his mouth he felt better. Calmer at least, more ready to face the consequences of his actions.

"Sammy? Wha'?" Dean was beginning to wake up. Sam got the chloroform out.

"Ssh, It's okay, Dean. Just breathe."

"No. Why-" Sam clamped the cloth over his mouth, holding tight until Dean stopped moving.

"For your own good. Just let me handle this, please." Sam addressed the unconscious Dean, getting back into the driver's seat.

"Everything is going to be fine."

Driving slightly too fast towards the crossroads, no music so that he could hear Dean's breathing, Sam repeated this sentence a few times. The power of positive thinking, right?

At the crossroads he hummed under his breath, a wordless tune of major notes. Dean was dragged out of the car and arranged on the ground inside a protective circle that was surrounded by another, older set of sigils.

Sam checked over the ground three times, then took a deep breath and buried the box he'd prepared in the middle of the road. Showtime.

"I'm flattered, hon, but you shouldn't have gone to all this trouble just for me." The soft Alabama voice slipped down his backbone like icy water. The demon swayed out of the shadows. Blonde, willowy, eyes the colour of fresh roadkill.

"I want to make a deal."

"Oh my, so forceful." She gave a mock shudder.

"You've got to give a girl a little time first, make a little conversation. Your brother was just the same."

"You're not a girl."

"Very like your brother. What - " she flicked an immaculate fingernail in Dean's direction "-is all that in aid of, darlin'?"

"That's part of the deal."

The demon sighed.

"I guess fun is off your little agenda." She pouted.

"Not necessarily, sweetheart." Sam grinned.

"I take it back. You're a lot more interesting than your brother." She moved closer. He stood still.

"You've got quite a dark side hidden under all that virtuous crap." She made virtue sound like a curse.

"Feel like letting it out to play?"

"Yeah, actually." He shot out an arm, catching her throat and bringing her in closer, staring into those iron-red eyes.

"Get out of the girl. Then we'll talk."

"No."

"Fine." He took a bottle of holy water from his pocket and poured it over her face. The screams echoed down the highway. She struggled, but Sam kept his hold on her throat.

"What are you?" she hissed in the harsh voice of an undisguised demon.

"Pissed off." He grinned again, his eyes utterly humourless.

"So I'm letting my dark side out to play. Like it?"

She choked as his hands tightened around her throat. Black mist poured from her mouth. The blonde crumpled into the dirt, still breathing.

"I'll kill you for thisss." The demon writhed like an oil slick on the air, radiating corruption. It darted at Sam's face, deflected at the last second by an unseen barrier.

"You're bound. Not going anywhere, bitch."

"It won't hold me long. I'm going to scrape the living flesh from your bonesss."

"We still got a deal to make. Ready to listen?"

"Yess."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter four - In which all is explained **

In only three days, Dean had become something of a fixture in the ward. He was in as soon as visiting hours started and had to be shown out at the end of the day. Sam slept a lot, so he talked to the other patients, flirted with the female nurses and won poker games against the three junior doctors. Whenever Sam did wake up, Dean dropped everything to be there.

Sometimes, Sam thought he was back in hell. Then, Dean would leave him alone, watching silently from a chair near his bed. It felt intrusive, but he needed to know what Sam had been through. It was compulsive, torturous listening.

"Where's the yellow eyed one, you bastards? Kill a demon, where does it go?"

"I know how you play this game. You want me to get comfortable so you can destroy it all in front of me. No dice, assholes, I'll destroy it myself." He started to hit himself and tear at the sheets on his bed. Dean ran in to restrain him. Sam was pitifully weak, couldn't do much damage, but it was impossible to sit there and watch.

"It was real. I had a family. I had friends. I had a good life, I did, I lived it and I saved people from this."

"There was a time when I was not in Hell. I remember it."

"My life was real. It was, it was, it was…"

"I can't remember what the sky looks like. Blue, I think. I remember Jessica's face."

At times Sam seemed to be talking to himself, taking stock of his soul. Hoarding memories and fragile reserves of sanity like water in the desert. At these times he was still.

When he was talking to the demons in his head he stood and walked jerkily around the room, desperately energetic, confrontational. Dean was awed. His brother was a stubborn, trouble-making bastard in Hell itself. He almost pitied the demons.

"Dean's alive. I made sure of it. You go up there, he'll send you back down. Make you suffer." A vengeful voice, hate and agony.

"It's worth it, I don't care if I never get out. He's alive."

When Sam spoke of him, and only then, Dean left the room. He felt deeply, guiltily unworthy of so much faith. Later, he realised that if the original deal had gone down he would have said many of the same things about Sam.

"Hecate, where are you?"

"Who's Hecatay, Sam?"

"Wouldn't you like to know. Show me more horrors, dickwad, I'm bored. Christo, christo, christo, can't shut me up. I am fed full on horror, I am steeped in it."

Sam was making up for lost time. Seeing Dean seemed to have unleashed his voice. He had four 'hell episodes' in the five days after Dean's arrival, and he talked non-stop throughout each one. At least it got him a private room.

'Hell episodes' lasted a little less than an hour. When Sam woke up on Planet Earth he drifted back to sleep after about fifteen minutes. Dr Cairns asked Dean politely to try to keep conversations as happy and stress free as possible, on pain of laryngectomy without anaesthetic. This didn't actually leave that many topics and drove Dean quietly up the wall.

"Who is Hecate, Sam?"

"Long story."

"Is it involved with that other long story you were going to tell me? You know, I remember the chloroform. That was dirty fighting."

"Did it make you hurl afterwards? 'cause I hear that's a common side effect."

"No. Pounding headache though." Sam played an imaginary violin.

"Screw you."

"Many have."

"I doubt that."

"I'd show you the pictures, but the envy would kill you."

"Thanks, you can keep your skanky warthog sex pictures."

Sam laughed breathlessly.

"Warthog sex? Ew, dude."

"The only animal that would have you." Dean said ruefully, trying to keep a straight face.

"Hey, I have supermodel potential. Size zero, right here, Keep your warthogs – oh wait, you already do."

"I really missed you, y'know? Annoying as you are. Like when Dad fixed the creaky door on the Impala and he had to re-creak it after a week."

"I've never seen a mechanic re-creak a door since. The guy was ingenious, gotta give him that. How he got out of Hell is a good story."

"Yeah?" Dean kept his voice casual. This was the first time Sam had mentioned Hell of his own accord and Dean didn't want to push it.

"I heard it from someone… See, Hell is a labyrinth, sort of. It keeps shifting… Anyway, Dad got a bunch of demons to guide him out. Argued them into it, knowing him. He was inching his way towards the gate the whole time he was there. When it opened they fought their way out – or at least, Dad did. The demons were behind him, and the gate closed in their faces. They all got, uh, punished."

"That would be a euphemism for…?"

"You don't want to know what actually happened." Sam's mouth twisted in disgust at the memory. Dean judged, accurately, that the conversation was moving away from happy and stress free territory.

But hey, since they were talking about it anyway…

"How did you get out?"

"That's very involved with how I got in."

"Okay, how did you get in?"

"I made a deal. One with much better terms than yours."

_Six months earlier_

"The spells I've set up mean you can't get free and you can't have Dean. Not without taking me as well, which would break his contract. So the first part of the deal is, I go in his place."

"I'm going to burn you alive." A disgusting sound of anticipation came from the demon. Sam retched.

"No. I'm doing you a favour here." Sam continued, trying to steady his nerves. There was something about the demon's inflection on the word 'burn' that made him want to run. But that's why he'd taken it out of the girl, to make it angry. To make it stupid.

"In return, I get to live. You take my body down to Hell along with my soul. The deal is you get a soul. Doesn't say anything about anyone dying. Doesn't say how long you get to keep the soul either." Loopholes. Wonderful, incredible loopholes.

"Once we're in Hell, you prevent me being hurt in any way and you get me out of Hell as fast as you can. I have to be back out, body and soul, within a day – that's both subjective time and time as seen on Earth." Sam clung to the image of a contract lawyer, setting out the paragraphs and sub-clauses on a teak desk. Slowly but surely filling in all the gaps, anticipating contingencies. Methodical, careful work.

Not negotiating at midnight with formless evil. Not winging it. Not terrified. He forced himself to speak slowly in a facsimile of calm.

"After I get out, you never act against me again, or anyone under my protection."

"No chance, human." The words dripped bile. The demon seethed and boiled in the pale blue moonlight.

_Six months later_

"Of course, she wasn't going anywhere. Those spells were total duct tape magic, but they worked. There must have been stuff from like ten different traditions in there, Voodoun, Shinto, Catholic…" Dean coughed. Sam took the hint and cut to the chase.

"The upshot was I got five months and three weeks in hell. It works out as one year in Hell time. Took most of that time to crawl out, even with her help."

"Hecate."

"I had to call her something. It seemed appropriate." The Greek goddess of witchcraft, crossroads and dogs.

"That's… kind of geeky." Dean was a little disturbed by the 'she'. Demons weren't 'she'. Demons were 'it'.

"You trusted it to get you out of Hell?"

"Contract law. You don't have to trust anyone as long as you get all the fine print right. It was a pretty complicated agreement after a couple of hours bartering."

"Heh. You are entirely crazy, kid. You should have stayed in Law school. We'd be rich by now."

"It all seemed to work out okay." Sam stretched, throwing off the story like a bad dream.

"Look, I hate to lay this on you, but the doc think you need serious psychiatric help. I'm stalling him for now, but we may need to cheese it before they put you on the pretty purple pills. Get better soon, okay?"

"Sure thing, Dean."

"And eat some food, you look like death warmed over."

"Bite me. Just 'cause I saved your ass doesn't mean I like you. The food here sucks, they keep giving me semolina and jello."

"Want me to get you something? I'm gonna grab a burger."

"Get me anything vegetarian. Fruit, bread, pasta, whatever."

"Since when are you vegetarian?"

Sam considered this. _Since I've had to survive by eating whatever turned up in Hell, which was always meat – well, meat based - and always disgusting. Not always dead, though. _

"Since now." He gave Dean a bland, guileless stare. Dean crooked an eyebrow, not buying it.

"Care to elaborate?"

"Later, maybe. Do I have to get out of this bed and buy my own rabbit food?" It was a weak joke, but it broke the tension of the unanswered question.

"Okay, okay. I'm gone. Cranky bitch."

**AN: Only the epilogue to go!**


	5. Epilogue

**Epilogue - In which the sun sets.**

"-can't! He's getting better-"

"- decide for himself. It's not ethical -"

"I take care of him. No -"

"-safety of others."

Sam swam up through the murky waters of sleep, catching fragments of the argument raging by his bedside. They interwove with the horrors of his dream until all meaning was leached from the words. The shifting labyrinth of hell twisted around him, glistening like diseased flesh.

Waking up screaming probably hadn't been the best way to contradict the doctor's diagnosis of 'dangerously delusional'.

Dean had eschewed tactical lying in favour of the shouting match, 'no-one puts Sam in a straitjacket', confrontational form of negotiation. Which was heart-warmingly fraternal, but possibly, maybe, a little bit -

"- completely idiotic. Just calm down and shut up!"

And so there they were, walking out of the back exit of the hospital at sunset, having picked only one rather simple Yale lock. Casually checking around for security guards, Dean grabbed Sam's arm and made for the parking lot. Sam swatted him away.

"Dude, personal space?" Dean hovered close by as Sam made his way slowly towards the car.

Outside in the dying light of the setting sun his emaciation and dead white skin made him seem almost translucent, a fragile being who could be blown over by the next gust of wind. Dean held his breath as Sam approached that difficult obstacle, the kerb.

"Dean, what's with you? I can walk, I've been walking round the ward for weeks. Go open up the car or something."

"You're such a klutz, you might fall over. And you're as pale as a fish's belly."

"Fuck you, freckles." Sam said without heat.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"If they put me on anti-psychotics, I'll really lose it. Didn't come back to be driven insane."

As always with Sam's little moments of honesty, Dean was thrown off balance.

"Well, okay then. Just - do me a favour?" He looked away from Sam, staring into the middle distance like it owed him money.

"What?"

"Talk to someone. Not necessarily me, I know it's a bit... claustrophobic between us sometimes already. Maybe there's some stuff you don't want me to know, and I'm okay with that. But to someone."

"About Hell."

"Yeah."

"You know why I can't tell you? You'll take it to heart, every single second of pain. It's like watching you cut yourself."

"I can toughen up. Or we can go to Bobby, or Ellen."

"Okay. Consider it done." Dean grinned and started making eye contact again. Moment over.

"Come on. For one night only, you can pick the music."

"Um... do you still have Kansas?"

"Yeah. I thought you hated them?"

"Hell changes people, Dean."

"For the better, apparently..."

Is driving off into the sunset too much of a cliche? So be it. Life is made of cliches, and this one's a good one.

**AN: Sorry for the hiatus, and thank you to all the nice reviewers.**


End file.
